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Septicemia and sepsis are serious bloodstream infections that can rapidly become life-threatening. They arise from various infections, including those of the skin, lungs, abdomen, and urinary tract. Patients with these conditions are often treated in a hospital’s intensive care unit. Early aggressive treatment increases the chance of survival. In 2008, an estimated $14.6 billion was spent on hospitalizations for septicemia, and from 1997 through 2008, the inflation-adjusted aggregate costs for treating patients hospitalized for this condition increased on average annually by 11.9%. Despite high treatment expenditures, septicemia and sepsis are often fatal. Those who survive severe sepsis are more likely to have permanent organ damage, cognitive impairment, and physical disability. Septicemia is a leading cause of death. The purpose of this report is to describe the most recent trends in care for hospital inpatients with these diagnoses.

Purpose : To quantify the coinciding improvement in the clinical diagnosis of sepsis, its documentation in the electronic health records and subsequent medical coding of sepsis for billing purposes in recent years. : Methods : We examined 98,267 hosp...

DHHS publication ; no. (PHS) 2013–1209 : In 2000, there were 2.4 million deaths in the United States, and in 2010 there were 2.5 million (1,2). In both years, about one-third of these deaths occurred in short-stay, general hospitals (3), despite re...

Hospital-acquired infections with Staphylococcus aureus, especially methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) infections, are a major cause of illness and death and impose serious economic costs on patients and hospitals. However, the recent magnitude a...

Introduction : Claims-based analyses report that the incidence of sepsis-associated organ dysfunction is increasing. We examined whether coding practices for acute organ dysfunction are changing over time and if so, whether this is biasing estimates ...